Makeshift memorial grows at site of deadly stabbings

Clara Ho and Reid Southwick, Calgary Herald04.16.2014

A snow covered memorial grows on Butler Crescent in Brentwood the day after Calgary's worst mass murder. Five young people were stabbed to death at a house party early Tuesday morning.Gavin Young
/ Calgary Herald

A note and a candle sit amid the flowers at the makeshift memorial for the Brentwood homicide victims.Clara Ho
/ Calgary Herald

As the snow continued to fall over the quiet Brentwood neighbourhood a day after five students were slain, a steady stream of people visited the growing makeshift memorial site.

Some were friends of the victims, others were strangers who just wanted to pay their respects, many of them stopping to reflect in silence with tears in their eyes.

They came bearing bouquets of flowers, potted plants, and one woman - Marie Houslander - even set up a stone angel.

Houslander didn't know any of the parties involved but came to the scene Tuesday and decided to come back the following day to set up the statue.

"I brought an angel, because they're angels now in heaven, somebody to look over their families," she said.

Near the stacks of flowers and loving messages on Butler Crescent N.W., police tape blocks access to what remains an active police investigation into the stabbing deaths of five victims, aged 22 to 27. They were at a party Tuesday celebrating the end of the university semester when an invited guest went on a killing spree.

Matthew Douglas de Grood, the 22-year-old son of a senior Calgary police officer, has been charged with five counts of first-degree murder.

The scene, now blanketed with snow, remains much the same size with yellow police tape blocking a large area around the home.

Denise Van Lammeren lives in Silver Springs and didn't know any of the victims but felt compelled to visit the makeshift memorial, bringing five white roses. She said she was shocked by the news.

"I just wanted to pay my respects," she said, tearfully. "It's just very tragic, very sad. I'm a mom. Can you imagine what they're feeling?"

Cordelia Nguyen, who came to visit the scene, said she didn't know any of the victims but recognized Matthew de Grood from the Safeway where he worked.

"The reason I remembered him is his smile. He smiles with his teeth and I always check out people's teeth," she said. "He seemed like a normal guy. He was very friendly."

Former Brentwood resident Kaitlyn Reimer also took in the scene this morning. Reimer said that she had a friend who was at the fatal house party Tuesday night but left 45 minutes before the stabbings took place. "He's grieving right now, he's with family," Reimer said.

She didn't know the victims but wanted to come to the scene anyway, drawn by the falling snow.

"(It) reminded me of being washed clean," she said. "Everything being renewed, having hope again. We are going to make it through. It's going to be ok."

The owner of the home where the stabbings occurred, who doesn't want his name published, stopped by Wednesday to check on the house and the police progress. He said he talked to one of the tenants, who sounded "glum" and didn't say much about the incident.

The landlord said he didn't recognize any of the names or faces of the victims, and didn't know whether any of them lived in the home.

On a small patch of grass nearby there are dozens of bouquets of flowers - an assortment of lilies, daisies and roses - as well as a candle and note.

On the clear glass candle holder, someone wrote in black felt marker:

"One with the stars

RIP Josh and Zach

Forever my sibling"

The note, scrawled in blue ballpoint pen on white paper, read: "BCHS Class of 2009 Food Fight" at the top and "Brought to you by Jordan Segura" at the bottom, with a stickman drawing in between.

“Heaven has five more angels,” read another message tucked inside a bouquet of flowers near the scene of Calgary’s bloodiest mass homicide. “You will be missed....”

A steady stream of rubberneckers continues to drive by, hitting their brakes to slow down and catch a view of the scene.

Four friends walked hand-in-hand to the end of the scene Tuesday night, the site of so much chaos less than 24 yours before, and stopped for a prayer. In the snow and the cold, they looked on and sang Amazing Grace.

Members of a local choir group, they stood to lend their thoughts to “this area, this neighbourhood, these families, the victims,” said Rosey Bishop. One of their members had been at the house a half-hour before the violence broke out and was friends with all five victims.

“It hits home pretty hard because he could have been there,” Bishop said.

Vanessa Ladoucey, who was friends with two of the murder victims, dropped off a bouquet of daffodils and a candle at the scene Tuesday evening. The candle is inside a glass with a message written across it that says, “One with the stars; rip Josh and Zack, forever my sibling.”

Ladoucey had met Zackariah Rathwell and Josh Hunter through mutual friends, all of them brought together by music. Ladoucey and Hunter shared an inside joke that they were brother and sister, a relationship cut so short, so soon.

“Their smiles were contagious,” she said. “They were really free-spirited and always so happy.”

Rathwell and Hunter were in a band, Zackariah and the Profits, which held a record release party in Calgary on the weekend. Ladoucey got to know them through her friends who are also musicians, playing in the bands Windigo and the Ashley Hundred.

“They were going to go places,” Ladoucey said. “They just released their CD, so at least we have some part of them left.”

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